


South American Idle

by orphan_account



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Venture finds themselves in the midst of adventure on Chiloe Island. Adventure and . . . DANGER! Will Hank and Dean survive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	South American Idle

 

 

Like a silver bullet speeding from a chamber, except much larger and also powered by supersonic experimental jet fuel, the X-1 shot across the wide, blue expanse of sky, which was reflected in the wide, blue expanse of water below. Relatively cloudless, the sky was the colour of a freshly-painted mailbox, before it was vandalised with stickers and graffiti and God knows what else.

Inside the X-1, Brock calmly manned the controls, cigarette expelling a pencil-thin trail of smoke into the pressurised cabin. This irritated Dr Venture (he didn't want to get 'the cancer') sitting next to him, but he had complained about it so many times and Brock had just shrugged and made noncommittal noises so many times that the good doctor had just given up at this point. He was still annoyed though, and was certainly going to blame Brock when he got a stroke or something from bottling up all this irritation. Moreover, what would the boys think if he snapped in front of them? He always had to keep the well-being of his sons in mind!

When he thought of them, Dr Venture absently turned around to look at his sons sitting behind him, and his blood pressure immediately shot up, leading him closer to that stroke he was going to blame Brock for causing.

"What the hell are you two _doing_!" he shouted, catching the boys off-guard. They looked equal parts startled and guilty as they looked back over to their father, their bodies turned toward each other, fingers attached by what appeared to be a thin scrap of rubber.

"It's cat's cradle, Pop," Dean said in a small voice. If Dr Venture was not so pissed off, he would have been further annoyed by the thought that Dean was going to cry in a second.

"Cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon," added Hank in what he probably thought was a helpful manner.

Dr Venture just sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing, his glasses bouncing up and down as he did so. "Yes, I'm aware of what -- Hank, do you even know what that _means_?"

"Um," said Hank, squinting a bit. "Like ... the cow jumped over the moon?"

"Like a nursery rhyme," added Dean.

"Like that video game," said Hank.

Dean turned to him, squinting too. " _What_?"

"On the computer," said Hank, turning to face his brother as well. "With the weird orange kids."

"Oh, where the lady comes in your bedroom at night takes you to nursery rhyme land on her flying goose?"

Hank snorted. "More like _abducts_ you."

"Oh, what!" said Dean. "She's _Mother Goose_ , she's not going to abduct children."

"Pfft, what game were _you_ playing? Of course she abducts kids, she needs them to work as her slave labour force."

" _What_!" said Dean.

Hank rolled his eyes, gesturing vaguely with his hands, which of course jerked his brother's hands around as well, as their fingers were still attached by rubber. "Were you ever rewarded for fixing up all the mix-ups? Heck no, she just --"

"Oh my God I think I just died for about twenty seconds -- _would you two just shut up_?!" said Dr Venture loudly. His sons did as they were told, turning to look at him sheepishly again. Rubbing his temple, Dr Venture reached into the pocket of his safari jacket for the case in which he kept his 'diet pills,' popping one before glaring at his sons again.

"You two need to settle the hell down," he said irritably. "And moreover, where did you get this?" He reached back and snatched up the thin strip of rubber, which burned into the twins' skin as it was untwisted from their fingers. Dr Venture ignored their hurt looks as they rubbed their hands and just squinted at the thing between his fingers, adjusting his glasses.

"It looks like part of a fan belt," observed Brock, though Dr Venture didn't know when the hell he'd actually looked over; as far as he could tell, he'd never looked away from the windshield.

Dr Venture turned back around in his seat so he didn't have to look at his sons anymore, still squinting at the piece or rubber. "Is that ... what is that?"

"It's like part of the engine," said Brock, taking his cigarette from his mouth and gesturing vaguely with it before ashing it.

Dr Venture looked at the piece of fan belt for another few seconds, then slowly turned to look at Brock. "Part of the _X-1's_ engine?" he said, voice rising slightly in pitch.

"Yeah," said Brock mildly.

"Is that ... serious?" said Dr Venture, unsure of how to react to Brock's flippancy.

Brock just shrugged. "We'll see in a minute when I try to land."

Dr Venture sighed and put his hands over his face, then turned around to glare at his sons again. "No more taking apart the X-1's engines for little Girl Scout activities."

"It's not Girl Scout stuff!" said Dean defensively.

"Yeah, I mean, we're _boys_ ; that's just stupid," added Hank. "I have a girlfriend and everything."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah right."

"More of a girlfriend than _you_ have," said Hank.

Dean just blushed at that and shut up. Hank smiled smugly, triumphant, and crossed his arms over his chest.

Pleased that his sons had finally shut themselves up, both for his sanity and his slowly worsening headache, Dr Venture continued. "How the hell did you two even get near the engine; you both probably got a massive dose of radiation. You're both taking a chemical shower when we get home."

The boys groaned in unison.

"It's your own fault," said Dr Venture. He held up the piece of fan belt. "Why did you even _do_ this, anyway? Are you both turning into little Punk rockers, destroying The Man's property?"

"'cause this is _boring_ ," said Hank. "It's taking way too long to get there."

"Well, the next time the people of Chiloe Island need help destroying an ancient evil that is wiping out an entire generation, I'll just tell them to wait because _Hank_ is _bored_."

Hank raised his eyebrows, blinking. "Really?"

" _No, not really_!"

\--

"Man, this _sucks_ ," griped Hank, whacking idly at a fern with a switch he'd made out of a fallen tree branch, mimicking Brock's adept handling of a machete.

Dean sat nearby him in the passenger seat of the Jeep, his legs dangling out the open door, chin in his hands, elbows on his knees. "I know," he said.

"This really, really _sucks_ ," said Hank.

"I know."

"This really, really, really --"

"I _know_ ," said Dean, lifting up his head to glare at his brother. "It's your fault; you made Pop ground us."

"I didn't _make_ him do anything!" said Hank, whirling around to wave the stick around in the air at his brother, who leaned back, afraid of having his eye taken out. Hank sighed and lowered the switch, and both of them just looked at their feet for a few moments, quiet in the little clearing in the middle of a South American jungle.

Eventually, Hank looked up. "You wanna ... go exploring or something?"

"No," sighed Dean.

"But you love exploring," said Hank.

"But we're _grounded_ ," said Dean.

Hank sighed again, tracing vague shapes into the ground with the end of the stick. "This sucks," he said.

"I know."

\--

After several hours of complaining, arguing, and sighing, the boys finally both just curled up in the Jeep to go to sleep. This was not the safest thing to do, because of their high rate of being captured (and also being killed, but they didn't know that), but they were just so bored that there was nothing better to do.

The sun moved across the cloudless sky, changing the patterns of shadow cast upon the jungle floor through what little space there was between the densely sprouted leaves hanging above, high among the trees. Time passed and the Venture twins slept, dreaming about adventure and ladies and sometimes adventures with ladies (purple-haired ones, and redheads with missing eyes, depending upon which twin it was).

It was nearly dark when Dr Venture and Brock returned to the Jeep, Dr Venture brandishing a flashlight and Brock brandishing a machete.

"Oh, you were right," said Dr Venture mildly, looking around at the clearing, empty except for the Jeep. "I guess we shouldn't have left them. Oh well, we'll just pop some in the oven when we get back."

Brock rolled his eyes and went over to the Jeep, wordlessly opening the door. The boys unceremoniously tumbled out, still sleeping.

"Oh," said Dr Venture, adjusting his glasses.

"Yeah," said Brock.

The boys started stirring then, reacting belatedly to being thrown to the ground. Dr Venture wondered vaguely if maybe this batch had a screwed-up reaction time or something.

Dean yawned and stretched his arms over his head, blinking sleepily. Hank pushed his face up from the jungle floor, bits of dirt and leaves stuck to his forehead. "Oh, hey Brock," said Dean as Brock knelt down to help them both up.

"Oh wow, what happened to _you_?" said Hank, eyebrows raised at Brock's appearance; he was covered from neck to toe in a thick layer of blood.

"What happened was we got stiffed on the bill," sniffed Dr Venture, crossing his arms, the flashlight beam swinging around at the trees as he did so. "The next time we do something like this, remind me to get an invoice; I can't do a thing with like, tribal artefacts or whatever. How the hell do I file that on my tax return?"

"Sure, Doc," said Brock, rolling his eyes again, standing up straight once the boys were up as well.

"Aw man, weak," said Hank, totally enamoured of the blood coating his father's bodyguard. "We missed out on Brock killing like, ancient monsters and stuff, Dean-o!"

Dean, not as quick to wake as his brother, rubbed sleepily at his eyes. "It's called cryptozoology," he said.

"Um, it's called 'you are an idiot,'" said Hank.

"God, they're so much easier to deal with when passed out," muttered Dr Venture, hand to his forehead. " _Boys_ , get in the car. We need to drive back to the airstrip."

Dean sleepily obeyed, immediately curling back up in the back-seat. Hank followed him, excitedly questioning Brock about what he had killed, and how many, and what had they looked like, and were there claws, and did the claws have poison, and did the fangs have poison, and ten thousand other things, all to which Brock responded monosyllabically.

Dr Venture popped another pill before trudging over to the passenger side of the Jeep and getting in, rubbing at his temple.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Do super-sonic experimental jets even have fan belts? WHO KNOWS. Also, the game they are talking about is called "Mixed-Up Mother Goose," which, by my including it, has just made evident how freaking old I am.
> 
> Written for imparfait


End file.
